I don’t know if you’ve ever wrote and produced a short film and screened it in a big crowded movie theater — the same one where you saw the epic musical disaster, “The Apple”, and later “Pan’s Labyrinth” — but it’s pretty nervewracking. I was thought I was going to spit up right up until our title card appeared. I was convinced that it wouldn’t make sense and the crowd would stand and shout “Boo!” and “Lame” and “Not as funny as you anticipated!” But they didn’t! They liked it!
It hit from the very first joke, and the crowd kept rolling with it through the end. I couldn’t believe it! In fact, halfway through I started to get nervous that they were missing too much because they wouldn’t shut up and stop laughing. Seeing my own face in a gigantic big-screen close-up rekindled the spit-uppyness, but it was pretty quick (I’m just a minor character).
My secret trick in making this film was packing it full of the people I really love. The cast and crew were all my favorite people to be around, and I think it ended up showing in the final product. Even with all the little snags along the way — location toubles, time crunches, extreme rabbit allergies — we all just pushed through together, and had a lot of fun. So it was really cool to see other people having fun watching it, too.
*I am sorry for the lack of needless vulgarity and vitriolic bile in this entry. I am pretty pissed off about the elevators at work though, so don’t worry — there’ll be more soon.*
Pingback: » We’re a hit!